


emma swan is wearing a prom dress

by coalitiongirl_ficlets (coalitiongirl)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: 4a, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-21
Updated: 2014-10-21
Packaged: 2018-02-22 00:17:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2487455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coalitiongirl/pseuds/coalitiongirl_ficlets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma attempts to date Hook. Like everything else in her daily routine, that consists mainly of her thinking about Regina. (4.04 rewrite/missing scene)</p>
            </blockquote>





	emma swan is wearing a prom dress

**Author's Note:**

> I'm posting from my phone, hopefully there aren't any weird formatting bugs!

She wears the stupid dress.

It's from _Aurora's_ closet, of all places, but she and Ruby are tight these days and Ruby had suggested it after she'd slammed the door on her own closet and Ruby's both because everything had felt _wrong, wrong, wrong_ like a person she doesn't–she _can't_ be around Hook.

(Ruby also mentions that Regina had been in the diner with Henry earlier in the week and had seemed pretty chill, for Regina, and maybe she wouldn't be resistant if someone tried calling her now. Emma ignores her and grabs the very last thing in Aurora's closet she'd wear.)

And you know what? It looks like she's heading out to prom but that's okay, she was in prison when most girls are at prom and she deserves a date night like they'd gotten so maybe this is it. She puts up her hair in a high pony of defiance and stares at herself in the mirror and tries to smile at the stranger staring back at her.

Seventeen-year-old Emma who'd grown up with two parents who dote on her would like how she looks. Seventeen-year-old Emma of small-town Storybrooke dating a guy who loves her is living the dream.

She hesitates in the mirror, unable to persuade even herself of that truth. Regina would scowl at her dress and make a snide comment about her wearing pink, probably.

That firms her resolve. She doesn't give a fuck about what Regina thinks, right? She's going to have her night out and she's going to be _happy_ , happy with someone who cares about her and who isn't in some fucking snit about some fucking _outlaw_ who'd been her soulmate or something.

She grits her teeth and tries to remember what kissing Hook feels like, but instead she's caught in the scent of damp grass and a fading fire, of Neverland after dark with Regina pressed against her whispering desperate promises they both need to believe into her lips, _we'll find him, we'll find him, we'll find him_ , and the nights when it's just them that they don't talk about anymore.

None of that matters. She has her dress and she has her guy and she's going to have the time of her life, and her gritted teeth turn to tentative smile as she makes her way down the steps from her room.

+

Henry texts her as they're getting into the car, and she glances at it surreptitiously. _staying with Mom tonight. gotta make sure she sleeps._ A pause, then her phone buzzes again. _mom = regina not you. have fun!_ She almost smiles at that, Henry all grown up and set on taking care of both his moms like they do him. He'd gotten into the mansion back when Regina hadn't been letting anyone in, and he's the reason she's even _seen_ Regina this week. And Mary Margaret had just walked in even before Henry.

It's almost like Regina shutting everyone out is just Regina shutting _her_ out and she's annoyed and frustrated and she's _trying_ , if Regina would only let her help her. If Regina hadn't decided that Emma would just fuck it all up again.

There's something about being around Regina lately that has her perpetually feeling like more of a fuck-up than she has in years, like she's incompetent and unworthy. And she's automatically on the defensive. Regina's words dig holes within her and demand reaction, demand that she be _better_ , and she swallows back a renewed sense of loss she can't name and tucks her phone into the cupholder and ducks into her bug.

They make light conversation and it's so different, it isn't Emma Swan and Captain Hook but these two strangers who are pretending, pretending, like they're good and good for each other and she wants to lose herself in whatever this imaginary world is because it seems simpler than ice women who seem to know her and fire women who are pretending that there's nothing to know.

In Neverland she'd lit fires too, had held out her hands as Regina had licked a trail up the shell of her ear in that way that had had stars bursting behind her eyes and fire bursting in their little pile of kindling. They'd talked about Henry and talked and talked until it hadn't been Henry anymore and suddenly it's _Cora_ and _Mary Margaret_ and then _Regina and Emma_ until the sun had threatened to rise and they'd finally crawled into their sleeping bags for the night.

Hook says something suggestive and she ducks her head, struggling to find it charming as she should, and sees one last message from Henry on her phone screen. _she says have fun on your date._

He adds a little smiley but it isn't enough to mitigate the way her hand jerks and her whole face pales.

+

She's on edge at dinner, forcing herself to smile and focus on Hook opposite her, wearing real-world clothes. For her! For this date to be...whatever he wants it to be. He's always there and he's been waiting for her for so long that she feels like he kind of deserves it.

(Something inside of her rails at the idea that she owes him anything, but her hands slide along the material of the dress and she reminds herself again that this is her choice, this is what she wants, this is all she's going to get. She _wants_ to reciprocate his devotion to her- as best as she can, anyway.)

When her runaway thief arrives at the table and Hook explodes at him, she's still stressed enough to be suddenly furious at their interruption. _Always interruptions._ She'd been about to start...something...with Regina and then they'd been interrupted with new curses and Regina holding her hand and she'd felt for a moment that she could fall apart and she could trust Regina to keep her together.

And then they'd been interrupted by Zelena, by Henry's missing memories, by that fucking tattoo that had had Regina distant from her and the depth of emotion in her eyes fading away. She doesn't know if Regina will ever again look at her with that mingled trust and pain that she once had and she feels emotions running hot in her throat and the bottom of Aurora's dress is sticky against her thighs and what is she thinking, wearing this stupid dress and trying to live this stupid second life?

It's not what she wants. What she wants is silly and impossible, because no one is going to hold her hand like that again. But Hook had held her after she'd nearly frozen to death and she'd been surrounded by fleeting warmth, and he's never going to be able to keep her whole if she shatters but he'd pick up the pieces, at least, and that's more than she'd get otherwise, right?

They'd held Henry together in the middle of the street in Storybrooke and the world had seemed to right itself with her palm on Regina's back. And she'd known then that it wouldn't last, that that promise is all but done for now. She knows she doesn't get to keep things like that moment.

She'd tried to run rather than dwell on the loss of it, even before someone else had started making Regina smile. And now they're further apart than ever and Regina talks to everyone but her and it hurts like prickles of _it didn't have to be this way_ across her skin.

She won't make these mistakes with Hook. Hook is what she has now and she's so tired of losing people who fit right. It's easier to climb into someone else's dress than to try and find one that fits her the way she needs.

She kisses Hook by the door and escapes her parents and sits down on her bed, reminding herself that she's happy.

Then she turns on her heel and hurries down the stairs fast enough that no one can ask her where she's going.

+

"Look at you, you're...Sandra Dee," Regina drawls when Henry lets her into the crypt, but her eyes are gleaming half like they used to, hurt enough to consume the trust. Emma kisses her right there in the center of the room, feels a book drop down between them and Regina kissing her back, fierce with longing like it's Neverland again and all they can see is Henry and each other.

Regina's hands lace through hers and they lock in perfectly like Hook's hadn't quite earlier in the night, and Emma feels herself unsteady and then unmade, renewed into someone she'd been before she'd fallen into pale dresses and traded ships and someone else's love like a burden on her. It's not _just_ Regina who sets her free in an instant but she's a part of it- the part that anchors her to ground with her hands before she can float away into uncertain mist and hide in the fog.

They separate but their hands are still together and Emma doesn't know what there is to say for Regina to understand what tonight had meant for her, how it could have only ended this way and she'd never known.

But then Regina smiles at her- rueful and the resentment all but faded (maybe it had faded before this, maybe it's just all she could see because she had been so afraid to see anything more)- and she says, "That dress really is unfortunate." And her eyes sweep over Emma like she sees the seventeen-year-old fleeing from prom and understands and wants- _demands, always demands_ \- more from her regardless.

She's never felt so relieved about that face in her life. "Yeah," she agrees, straightening and touching the material with one hand. It's simple satin, sleek and uncomfortable and princessy, and Regina is looking at it with enough disgust that it'd probably be a public service to strip it off right now. Her hands move to the zipper. "It really is."


End file.
